Prior art torque converters generally comprise a stator, an impeller and an output turbine with the impeller and the output turbine being coaxial. The impeller's blades create a fluid flow past the stator, which fluid flow has both an axial component and a tangential component. The fluid flow is then directed to blades of a fixed camber carried by the output turbine whereby the output turbine is rotated and an output shaft which is keyed thereto is rotated only in a single direction. If one wishes to obtain reverse direction rotation of parts driven by the output shaft, it is necessary to use conventional reverse gearing of one sort or another. This requires the use of gearing components which may have considerable friction losses, and, in any event, are expensive to machine and produce and add to the weight of the overall apparatus in which the torque converter is being utilized.
While the prior art shows some solid blading which can be mounted on a pin and rotated externally to effect a change in the pitch of the blade, such a technique is used to rotate vanes to control air flow through a radiator or the like or to choke the flow of a centrifugal blower. That is, even such rigid blading, which is rotatable only to effect a change in the pitch of the blade, is not used in a torque converter and is not used to control the direction of rotation of an output turbine.